Minutes of the Board of Directors, HPIA
July 8, 2022
Call to Order
The regularly scheduled quarterly meeting of the Board of HPIA was called to order at 3:30 on Friday July 8, 2022 via google meet. Attending were Shinichi Ichimaru, Eric Weinert, Chantal Vos and Ken Ogawa. Toshi Aioki, Lowell Jose and Darren Strand were absent.
Replace Retiring Board Member
The first order of business was to replace Koji Okomura, who retired from Diamond Head Papaya in June of 2022. Eric, as president, appointed Sihnichi Ichimaru as a director and board member to replace the vacancy left by the retirement of Koji. After a brief discussion the attending board members unanimously voted to accept Shinichi on the Board.
Accept prior Minutes
There was a motion to accept the April 15, 2022 Minutes made by Chantal and seconded by Ken. The motion passed unanimously.
Financial Report
Eric gave explained the financial report to the Board. Both the Balance Sheet on July 7, 2022 and the year to date Profit and Loss was sent to each board member before the meeting via email. Eric is keeping the books using an online version of quickbooks. Chantal, as treasurer, gets the bank statements for both the checking account at Bank of Hawaii and the credit card statements at Bank of America to verify balances and transactions. The balance sheet shows a cash balance just under $55,000 and a seed inventory carried on the books at just under $17,000. There are no liabilities or receivables. The P and L shows a loss of about $7,500 for 2022 through the first 6 months. Dues for 2022 have not yet been billed. The major expenditures are for $5,000 SHAC and $2,500 for website maintenance. The office was closed in May greatly reducing normal operating expenses. It is expected that once dues are billed HPIA should be operating at approximately breakeven for 2022. The taxes for 2021 are being done by Carbonaro CPA firm in Hilo.
Dues
The dues request and receipts shall go out the week of July 11th. The packing houses will submit a list of growers to the President with names, phone numbers, addresses and email addresses. Eric will then send bill and receipts to packing houses. The packing houses will make payment to the Association to simplify the dues collection. Bills will also go out to all handlers and industry associate members and potential supporters.
China Deregulation
A good discussion as to proceed with the China deregulation process was had. A string of emails indicated that the process for deregulation and acceptance of Hawaii papaya including our Rainbow variety was stalled. The process was begun in 2010 and much work has already been done. However the permit and application will expire in December of 2022, meaning that HPIA needs to decide if they want to continue to push for deregulation in a process that would take several more years at a minimum. It was decided to have board members meet with Marisa Wall at PBARC to get a more complete idea of timetables, costs and work needed to finalize the deregulation. Eric agreed to set the meeting up.
Seed Production.
The HPIA has approximately 22 pounds of seed stored in the refrigerators at Diamond Head Papaya. Despite being produced in the summer of 2019, germination on recent small sales to independent farmers has been excellent. Richard Manshardt with the University reported that UH had produced approximately 50 acres. There is another field that is just beginning to be harvested at Waiakea Experiment Station that is expected to produce another 50 acres worth of seed in the next year. Both Diamond Head and Calavo reported needing seed from HPIA that potentially use all of the current inventory of HPIA. The board directed the president to contact Dr Manshardt and offer to buy the seed already produced by the University. The concept is to use the older inventory of HPIA while providing an incentive to the University to continue to produce seed for the industry.
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 4:25. The next scheduled Board meeting is scheduled for September 9, 2022 at 3:30